How to Cultivate Habits that Work For You: Key Takeaways from James Clear Atomic Habits Event
I had the fantastic opportunity of attending James Clear, author of Atomic Habits’ live event today in Sydney.
I’m a huge fan of the Atomic Habits book. Everyone who’s into self-improvement has somehow already read or come across this book.
Allow me to share some of the insights that I’ve gathered from today’s live event (mostly a refresher from the book itself) while most of these are still fresh in my memory…
Anyone who is seeking to work on themselves and is particularly interested in self-improvement can learn a lot from the 4 Laws of Behavior Change (you can also read this in more detail from the Atomic Habits book itself… but i’m just going to include my insights from today’s event).
1st Law: Make it Obvious.
You want cues of those habits that you want to cultivate to be easy.
Design your environment in such a way that cues of your desired habits are almost automatic. You will find that many of our habits are unconscious and developed out of the environments we live in. To change a habit, start with the cues (make it really, really obvious).
This reminds me of an article I’ve read about how apps are designed. Apps are so intelligently designed around some of the most important psychological principles (e.g. habit loop, gamification, personalization, etc.) that a user can’t help but easily form habits with its usage.
Wonder why social media can be so addictive? You’ll find most of the answers around human psychology!
2nd Law: Make it Attractive.
Leverage the power of your social environment to make a habit attractive.
This is where peers come in, and why it’s beneficial to consider social factors in any powerful behavioral change. The people in your life can influence your habits and actions a lot. Why is that?
Our desire to belong overpowers our desire to improve (Clear 2023).
Can’t do change on your own? Get an accountability buddy. Want to be a runner? Join circles of people who are into running.
The power of our social environment is immense when it comes to influencing change that we consciously choose and want for ourselves.
Finally, it’s hard to see someone stick to positive habits in a negative environment (Clear 2023). If you want those good habits to stick with you, the way to go is positive reinforcement…
3rd Law: Make it Easy.
We often develop habits because the execution of those actions has become so easy and automatic.
We all want to change a bad habit (which can be anything really, and which most of us have… it’s actually humbling when you realize this). And you’d sometimes wonder: how did we end up here?
By making a habit more difficult to execute, by adding some friction around those activities, the performance of such habit gradually diminishes as well.
Also, this is where the 2-minute rule comes in handy. The idea is to take whatever habit you want to start and scale it down to 2 minutes. Keep it simple!
Then master the art of showing up consistently. With time, those 2-minutes will add up, and you will establish a new set of habits for yourself with that simple trick.
4th Law: Make it Satisfying.
It’s important to have that visual signal or evidence as proof that you showed up.
Reward is key to solidifying a new habit as well. When your brain compiles such evidence, which can be as simple as keeping a habit tracker for example, sometimes it can be enough signal to stay on track and to stay motivated.
It’s very important to have some reason to keep moving forward, and you’ll find that visual signals are handy and necessary. It prompts you to not break the chain, to never miss twice on a workout for example…
So why do habits matter so much?
The real reason why it matters, is because, every action you take is a vote for the kind of person you wish to become (Clear 2023).
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle
When there’s a gap (between our desired outcome and our daily habits), you can expect that the system always wins.
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” — James Clear
Consider this: There are also many inflection points in life. If your season in life changes, your habits often change with it.
Your habits change with you as you grow, as your identity evolves.
On Influencing Good Habits in Kids
A question came up on how to influence good habits in children and the advice is especially helpful for parents: role modeling is the best form of influencing your children.
You simply can’t get your kid to do something because you are the parent. You likely can’t get them to do things you yourself don’t follow or won’t do, because they will be looking at your actions more than anything else.
On Procrastination
Yes, this loaded, and all-time popular word sits alongside this topic, too.
When it comes to procrastination, it can sometimes be just a matter of a lack of courage. James shared how he wanted to do business as early as 22, but he didn’t really take action until he was 25… And the truth is, life can be like that for many of us.
We gather our knowledge base, our tools, as well as the courage to do something before we actually do it, only at the expense of time passing us by. For many of us: courage is always in short supply. But remember that no one else is going to give you permission to start. You will find that in most cases, life does not reward intelligence but it rewards actions. So the question is: do you have enough guts to start?
On high-performing teams:
When it comes to teams, what usually works is focusing on where you direct your energy. And a good question to ask ourselves about what we do is: Do you actually care about your work?
Anytime you see someone perform really well in what they do, they probably really care a lot. The people who are really great at their job, likely care about it so much. They usually go a lot into so many details to get things right. This is how you detect a high-performing team member in a work setting.
Motion vs. Action
Motion prepares you for action. Motion is…planning ahead, gathering information, etc. Action is execution. Action is what will get you the results.
The results you want lie in the action you take, so focus on action more than motion.
This was a really important takeaway for me. As someone who used to be a big planner, I did find myself constructing really good plans, that I never took action on. Merely looking at it sometimes made me feel scared to do anything. So it’s often true that procrastination is just a matter of lack of courage… and also sometimes, planning can just be a form of procrastination.
In saying this, I’m not saying you should not plan ahead (because planning can be important as well), but maybe you can allot 30% of your energy to planning and 70% for taking action (just an example).
Don’t get stuck in your head or in your planning that you fail to take the first step… Focus more on taking action vs. motion (merely preparing yourself for action).
And finally…
